


regret

by iris_ophelia



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iris_ophelia/pseuds/iris_ophelia
Summary: She finds herself pregnant on a Thursday.





	regret

She finds herself pregnant on a Thursday.

A few days prior, she is spewing her brains out on the Acela train back to New York. Convinced that it is the sushi she ate while with Ben, Kent, and Dan for lunch, she curses them for choosing the most expensive sushi restaurant on K Street that seemed to also make her sick with food borne illness. Practically crawling into her apartment that evening and collapsing in bed dehydrated, she is eternally grateful that Selina is preoccupied with Jaffar and she has only received a few unimportant texts from Gary.

But the nausea does not disappear the following day or the day after that. And then she realizes she missed her period.

Staring at the row of positive pregnancy tests on the bathroom sink at 9pm at night, she is surprisingly calm. She walks into the living of the tiny apartment she has been subletting in New York and sits stoically on the couch. Her phone is gripped tightly in her hand but there is no one to call. And ironically, Dan’s name flashes across the screen at that moment.

She sighs and slides it open to read his text.

_Too bad you did not stay longer in DC…_

Resisting the urge to violently throw her phone against the wall, she instead continues to sit and stare at the wall, wondering what the fuck she is going to do.

*

When she first arrived in New York, she had made a pact with herself that she was not going to acknowledge or interact with Dan. He had called and texted her several times since her exodus from Nevada, but she had no fight in her to play his games anymore. While she would proclaim to everyone that her reasons for escaping to Nevada all those months ago stemmed purely out of her fondness for Buddy, internally, she had still been reeling from the painful year that had ensued before she had left DC.

Of all of her emotionally abusive relationships, Dan and Selina were at the top. She could only handle entering back into one of them, so Selina won out, which is how she ended up in New York during the depths of the winter.

She found an apartment to sublet on the Upper West Side from a friend of a friend who taught at Columbia and was on sabbatical for a year. It was modest and small, but everything she needed and fully furnished. The first few weeks in New York, she focused on what she did best: her job. (Although Selina had seemingly become more awful to work for than ever before, so even Amy’s best work somehow found Selina burning effigies across her hours of research and reports.)

Every so often, Dan’s name appears on the screen of her phone. The words always vary, but the underlying content is always the same, _I miss you. Let’s get a drink._ She ignores them for weeks, until after a particularly awful day, she decides to respond.

_Meet me at 7pm, sharp. Don’t be late or I won’t be there._

She receives a response quickly and they pick somewhere close to Columbus Circle.

Selina is a particularly special level of insane as she continues to reminisce with Mike about her fucked up childhood, so Amy easily slips out of the office unnoticed at 5:30pm, well aware of the crappy commute between the Bronx and Columbus Circle. She arrives 10 minutes early; Dan, of course, is not there yet. He never is early to anything, but never late, always exactly on time. It irks her to no end.

She orders a scotch and sits at the bar, scrolling through her emails. She is in the middle of reading the painful exchange between Richard and their contact at American University, her blood boiling the more she reads, when a soft breath brushes across her ear. “Miss me Ames?”

She takes a moment and looks up to see his smirking face, “Not even a little.” Her voice is flat, without any inflection, and she purposely remains stoic in her response. He rolls his eyes and signals to the bartender for two more of whatever Amy is drinking.

He sits beside her and she is happy to see the flecks of grey spattered throughout his hair. “So, what’s going on?”

The bartender delivers the drinks as they begin to talk. She is short at first, unsure if she can let her guard down even half of an inch. He has burned her before and there is no telling what he will do with whatever she says to him. She carefully skirts the topic of Nevada and Buddy, and turns to his favorite subject, himself.

They eventually make their way to a couch and oversized armchair as Dan continues to gripe about CBS and Jane McCabe. And then Gary shows up, showering Amy with the harsh reality of her life.

“Have sex with Jane McCabe. Don’t have sex with Jane McCabe. Just do whatever it takes to keep your job because, it is in fact, a job. Or, we could trade places and you could be in charge of a library that doesn’t exist for a president who is currently more famous for being a jizz sock for Times Square tourists than for serving her country. Let’s go, Gary.”

She stomps out, throwing money on the table (she is not going to be indebted to him for three drinks), and quickly orders an Uber with Gary on her coattails. They head back to the office, Gary moaning softly beside her about what a disaster the wax figure is, while she stares out the window at the Hudson River. Her phone buzzes about ten minutes after they leave and she groans, knowing who it is.

_Don’t disappear again._

She does not respond, but she also does not disappear. Over the next few months, they meet every few weeks to drink away their sorrows. She is still cautious of him, but has accepted the sad fact that prior to the recount in Nevada so many months ago, Dan had become her best friend. And she had, in some through the looking glass bullshit, missed him. For all of his awfulness, he just understood everything with Selina and her job because he had lived the same life as her for many years.

She would never tell him that though.

And then Mike’s diary is published and they all realize they’re fucked.

After exiting the _Tonight Show_ in an unprofessional manner, Amy finds herself heading back to her own apartment to drown in alcohol by herself as Gary takes Selina to Jaffar’s hotel (Selina is in utter despair and it may require a visit to the spa soon). Her phone pings minutes after she gets home.

_Ben and I are meeting in an hour. Come._

She does not hesitate for a second. She grabs her coat and purse, and 45 minutes later, she is at the bar. Ben is already there; Dan is (of course) not. She sits next to Ben and he gives her a nudge of the shoulder (she imagines Ben is the closest thing she has to a father figure that understands her since her own father, endearing as he is, still has no clue what she actually does after all these years) and points to the bartender to pour a drink for her too.

With the glass tightly encased in her small hand, Ben asks, “How are things are Casa Meyer?”

Amy cackles, “Well, just peachy. Selina is on the verge of breakdown number two in less than a year, Gary has completely lost any resemblance of his balls that were shriveled on his body for the past ten years, and Mike…” she takes a long sip of her drink, “Well, Mike should be glad I don’t know where he stays in New York because someone would find a dead body in the East River tomorrow morning.”

Dan appears, “Consider both Ben and I to be your accomplices if this plan ever comes to fruition.”

They all find a table and commiserate for a while. Ben tells them that Kent is flying in that night to do the other half of the morning shows. After an hour, he bids them adieu, leaving Dan and Amy to wallow away their sorrows with more scotch.

“What about you, you want another one of these?” he asks signaling to the waiter.

“I have to get up early and… yeah, make it a double,” she says, planting her face in her hands.

“That atta’ girl.”

The waiter brings over another round and she begins to drink more, feeling sufficiently tipsy after four drinks. “How the fuck am I supposed to face her tomorrow, Dan? I mean, I know that you know she’s horrible, but you have no idea. Take her worst day in the White House…” she pauses for a moment, “I know, the fucking data breach, remember when we went into her office that afternoon? Remember how terrible that was, knowing that we were telling her something that was going to set off a shit storm?”

Dan nods and drinks more.

“That is rainbows and sunshine compared to every moment of every fucking day with her now.”

“Why’d you go back to her?” he asks.

She pauses—she is drunk enough to want to say the words, but sober enough to remember the repercussions of who she would be telling. She shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t know. I didn’t really have any other offers and after… well, I just wanted something, I guess not stable, but that I understood. Although, a slight miscalculation on my part, she is definitely the worst she has ever been.”

“Serves you right for making a pilgrimage out to bumfuck Nevada, to what? Get married to a pathetic loser and have very blonde looking reproductions of yourself with a golden retriever and white picket fence?”

He nudges her arm in jest, but she quickly pulls away. He goes back playfully but she pushes his hand, “Don’t fucking touch me Dan and don’t fucking talk about this.”

He looks at her confused, “Ames, what the fuck? I’m just…”

“No, you don’t get to “just” so shut the fuck up.” She slams down the rest of her scotch in one gulp and goes to put on her coat. “You know what, I’m done here.” She angrily buttons the coat, mumbling inarticulate words, before saying, “If you want to abuse someone else, make them your pet, go ahead. But not me, I’m not doing this anymore. Go fuck Brie or Jane or whoever your flavor of the week is, but I am not going to be your play toy when you’re bored or need someone to bitch to.”

She begins to walk away, “Drinks on fucking you,” she says flatly.

He sits there for a moment, confused, until he registers she’s leaving and quickly throws down cash (grateful that for once in his life, he’s carrying some), grabs his coat and follows her.

“Amy,” he shouts when he gets outside.

She ignores him and continues on her path, wherever that may be, so he jogs up pretty quickly behind her while she tries to hurriedly hail a cab. He grabs her shoulder, “Amy, what the fuck was that about? You throw some fucking random hissy fit and storm out and I’m supposed to know what this is about?”

“Of course, you moron, you’re that fucking dense. You have destroyed me for years. I finally fucking weaned my way out of your life and got a kick ass job as the Chief of fucking Staff to the Vice President, but no, you had to come fucking ruin it again and work with Selina. And then you butter me up, even get me a fucking job when my life is in shambles, make me think…” she trails off, but continues, “And then, to make me realize I am the stupidest person on the planet for believing… you fucking sleep with my sister.”

“You make it sound like there was another, better option that night,” he says frustrated.

“I’m glad to know you see it that way.” She holds her arm up for a cab when he gently places a hand on her other wrist.

“What are you talking about?” he asked confused.

“Like you so conveniently forget…” she pauses and he still looks at her blankly, “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“I think it fucking does, so why don’t you tell me?”

“Stop acting as if you did not get my texts and did not actively make a choice to ignore them.”

“Amy, what the fuck are you talking about?” he asks both angry and confused.

She stops to really look at him, because other people may not be able to tell when Dan is lying, but she can. And all she sees in his eyes is utter confusion about what she’s saying. And she inhales deeply, realizing he did not get those texts and that everything the past two years has not been what she thought, and her breath catches in her throat.

“I have to go,” she says quickly pushing his arm away, hopping in the cab that pulls up, leaving him behind.

She feels herself on the verge of a panic attack telling the taxi driver her address. He begins to drive and after about five minutes, she looks in her purse for her phone, and realizes she left it at the bar. “Fuckkkk,” she moans. “Excuse me sir, can you please bring me back to the bar? I left my phone.”

He nods and turns around quickly. She pays him instead of asking him to wait, deciding she may need one more drink by herself, and heads inside. And of course, of fucking course, Dan is sitting at the bar with her phone right in front of him. She groans and walks up, planning to just grab it and exit, but he hears her heels and places his stupid hands carefully around the phone so she cannot take it. He stares ahead at the TV above the bartender, another scotch sitting in front of him, and does not make eye contact with her.

“Give me my fucking phone.”

“Oh, now you want to talk?” he asks, staring at her in the eyes.

“Dan, please.”

“No, sit.” He holds his ground until she angrily plops on the stool next to him, “Now, do you want to tell me what in the ever living fuck you were talking about?”

Her eyes are clearly watering, out of anger he assumes, but he knows better than to think she will let him see one tear slide down her face. She takes a deep breath, “I sent you texts. In Nevada.” Her hands quickly go to rub her eyes, wiping the away traitorous tears before they can fall out of her eyes in a desperate attempt to make them go away.

“Okay. What did these texts say?” he asks.

She flutters her eyes downward, in in the quietest voice he has ever heard her use, he hears the word, “Nightcap.”

And then she’s turning again to walk away, he can tell at this point she could give two shits about her phone anymore, when he grabs her and pulls her into him, “And you thought that meant I chose…”

She will not look at him in the eyes, “Dan, even if you had received them, it would have been the same outcome, so let’s not pretend otherwise. Please just let me go.”

“There would not have been a choice,” he says forcefully. And then he captures her mouth and for the first time in months, her brain stops being a revolving door of anxiety and policy and work, and she just feels. Because Dan is the absolute worst is every way possible, but he has always known how to kiss her like no one else has, and she feels herself melt into him for a few moments.

She pulls away, standing between his legs, but her face is softer, “Dan, I can’t. I mean, it’s just…”

“It’s just nothing,” he says cupping her face. He lets go after a moment and captures her hand, signaling to the bartender with his credit card. They stay silent as his fingers run gently up and down her palm. Her heart is racing, because she knows him, she knows what he wants and what he does, and that this will probably break her in the worst way, but for some reason, she doesn’t run, even when he slides her phone back into her hands.

He signs the credit card slip and then says, “Let’s go.”

She follows him—outside into the cold, his arm wrapped tightly around her, then into the Uber, where his fingers trail softly across her thigh, then into his building, where he holds her hand tightly and nods to the doorman, then into the elevator, pushing her against the back wall where he buries his face in her neck, trailing kisses in her favorite sensitive spot while she sighs softly.

The elevator doors open and he pulls her toward his apartment at the end of the hall. The apartment isn’t huge, but shiny and new and it has a bedroom and decent size kitchen, which is a privilege in New York. She slowly unbuttons her coat, looking out the window, because of course he lives in a high rise in the financial district on a floor with an unfair view of the city. He comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her, “I only spend the money for the view,” he chuckles into her ear. She smiles and allows herself for the moment to feel the comfort of someone hugging her, holding her, feeling her warmth and giving warmth back.

She turns around to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck, “I still can’t stand you, you know that, right?”

He grins, “I wouldn’t expect anything else, Ames.”

And then for an hour or so, she just forgets everything except the way his mouth feels against hers, the way his skin slides against hers, the way her stomach flutters when his fingers slide across the right spot, the way her brain goes blank in the moments that she reaches her climax, the softness of his bed against her tired body, the slump of his body next to hers as he drags his fingertips along her side.

Her eyes peer open and she sees that his are closed, but he is clearly not sleeping, just letting his body settle. She pokes him and one of his eyes pops open.

“I should go,” she whispers. She moves to roll out of the bed but he gently grabs her arm.

“Stay.”

She looks at him, “Dan, I have to work in the morning. And I have no idealistic notions this is anything more than…”

He cuts her off, “It’s 2am. Just stay. There is no difference if you get there are 7am or 9am tomorrow, she’s not going to fire you. She doesn’t have anyone else. You live all the way uptown.” She hesitates, but does not actively move to leave the bed. “Just close your eyes and go to fucking sleep,” he says, pulling her back into the bed.

She is exhausted, and has not even an ounce of fight left in her, so she collapses against the pillow, far enough away from his body that they are not actively touching, but close enough that she can feel his warm breath moving soothingly across her shoulder.

She sleeps well for the first time in months.

*

In retrospect, it was not the first time that resulted in an alien creature inside of Amy, but the next morning. She is jolted away from a deep sleep with her alarm blaring on her phone and she angrily hits it several times until it finally turns off. She groans and feels Dan pull her against him, feels him slip his hand in between her legs, feels his lips trail across her favorite pathway from her ear to the crook of her neck, feels her own hand grab him to slip him in from behind, feels everything. It is intense, and exhilarating, and everything she needs to forget what day it is.

And they don’t use a condom.

He reassures her of the low mobility of his sperm and that there is no possibility of anything, pregnancy or STD, so for some reason, she believes him and does not run to the pharmacy that morning.

She should run out of his apartment. She should rush home and change and do all of the things she is supposed to do.

Instead, she sits in his kitchen and reads Politico next to him at 7:30am drinking an Americano and eating an almond croissant when she was supposed to be at the office thirty minutes earlier. And then, both of their phones begin to go off an explode with news alerts and texts and calls, and the next hour is a whirlwind while she is on the phone with Selina, and Dan is on the phone with Ben and Kent, and they are trying to figure out how to spin Tibet so the world forgets everything else.

They finally devise a plan—Amy to take care of Selina, Dan to help Ben and Kent handle the media, and at 8:30am, she gets up to leave and prepare herself for a day that won’t be quite as awful as she thought.

They look at each other, and Dan grabs her hand, “See you soon?” he asks.

She shrugs her shoulders, gives him a tiny smile and leaves.

Six weeks later, sitting in her living room with the positive pregnancy test resting on her bathroom sink, she thinks the thing she regrets most is letting Dan pay for the drinks that night.


End file.
